Stagwell's Crusade

Anomaly targets for Starbucks. Palantir targets for the US Department of War, ICE and others.

Both use sophisticated data analysis to identify, track, and reach their targets with precision. One delivers advertising. The other delivers airstrikes and raids.

These two targeting companies just became partners.

Last week, Stagwell, which owns Anomaly, Code and Theory, 72andSunny, and 70+ other agencies, announced a partnership with Palantir Technologies to build an AI-driven marketing platform. CEO Mark Penn called it "the Holy Grail of marketing brought to life," projecting "potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue." Stagwell stock pumped over 40% and quickly gave all that back.

He didn't mention that Palantir CEO Alex Karp explicitly describes his company's mission as helping to "power the West to its obvious innate superiority."

The reference by Penn that this is a "holy grail' is unfortunate nomenclature. While the Holy Grail is a legendary object from medieval literature and not a historical artifact that motivated the Crusades, it is strongly associated in the populist retelling of this series of religious military campaigns between the 11th and 13th centuries, with the primary goal being to reclaim Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim control. Not the term I would have advised him to use in this case.

What Stagwell and Palantir both do is legal, and people can choose to work for and with them, or invest in them, I respect that right.

However, I do think that as Starbucks is targeting people for their next pumpkin spiced latte, they should be aware that the data and AI partner of their agency is targeting others for death. That's all. Maybe they are ok with that.

For two years, I've written about how our industry is bifurcating. At one end, integrated giants like Publicis and Accenture building proprietary platforms. At the other, specialists thriving on democratised AI tools, the creative hotshop, the influencer shop, the experiential agency that does one thing superlatively.

Survival, I argued, requires choosing scale or specialism.

But when I catalogued specialisation forms, I listed the obvious: functional expertise (creative, data, retail media), or geographic depth (Dentsu doubling down on Japan, BlueFocus dominating China).

I didn't predict ideological specialisation.

In September this year, leaked documents revealed Stagwell conducted research for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, surveying over 13,000 people across the US and Europe to test pro-Israel messaging. Stagwell's recommendations included connecting "radical Jihadism" to the conflict as "universally effective" messaging for conservative audiences.

The backlash was immediate. Strategy powerhouse Zoe Scaman's LinkedIn post calling on Stagwell employees to "walk away" inspired many, and employees contacted industry critics saying they were "jumping ship." Stagwell's SKDK agency, which had registered as a foreign agent for Israel, terminated the contract.

A few short weeks later the Palantir partnership is announced.

Palantir's CEO Alex Karp doesn't hide what his company represents. In a 2024 New York Times interview, he elaborated: "We have a consistently pro-Western view that the West has a superior way of living and organizing itself."

The company's client list tells you everything about its positioning: Multi-billion dollar US federal defense and intelligence contracts including a $10 billion US Army contract (the largest ever awarded to Palantir), a $1.3 billion Maven Smart System contract with DOD (now called the 'Department for War', by the way) for AI targeting software, a $178 million TITAN intelligence ground station contract, and a nearly $1 billion Navy software contract.

Palantir's AI software is also used by ICE for immigration enforcement and by multiple US cities for "predictive policing." Karp has publicly stated that "Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world, and when it's necessary to scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them."

(In case you are skimming, read that last bit again. If you, like me, have sat down with hand-wringing ESG folk worried about how much paper the copiers in your agency uses, read that again. Stagwell's data and AI partner, openly enables the killing of people.….)

When Peter Thiel and Alex Karp founded Palantir, they built it around a specific geopolitical stance. Now Stagwell has chosen to align with that stance.

Here's where Mark Penn's bet gets interesting.

Starbucks operates in over 80 countries. China is their second-largest market after the US, with over 7,000 stores. The Middle East represents significant growth markets. Starbucks is actively trying to repair relationships in Middle Eastern markets after boycott campaigns. Howard Schultz spent decades building Starbucks as a globally neutral brand that transcends politics.

JPMorgan Chase, another Stagwell client, serves clients in more than 100 countries with $4 trillion in assets. In October 2025, JPMorgan secured a regional headquarters license in Saudi Arabia. The bank has extensive operations across China, with branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Suzhou. JPMorgan just hired Jonathan Slaughter specifically to expand business services in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Both brands chose Stagwell agencies (Anomaly for Starbucks in 2024, Code and Theory for JPMorgan) before the ideological positioning became explicit.

Did these decisions account for geopolitical risk?

Because while Starbucks is trying to rebuild its global brand and JPMorgan is expanding aggressively in the Middle East and Asia, their creative agencies' parent company just announced a partnership with a firm whose CEO says he's "powering the West to its obvious innate superiority."

Penn is far from stupid. He spent six years as Bill Clinton's White House pollster before becoming one of the most controversial figures in Democratic politics. He advised Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign. Then he advised Donald Trump on impeachment. Penn understands exactly what he's doing. And here's his bet:

The upside: US government contracts are massive and growing. Palantir proves the model—multi-billion dollars in federal contracts. Defense contractors and Western-aligned corporations need agencies. Penn's political connections provide access traditional holding companies cannot match. "Pro-West" positioning could appeal to specific Fortune 500 clients who want agencies aligned with their values.

The market opportunity: If bifurcation is real, if the world is genuinely splitting into Western and non-Western sphere, then holding companies trying to serve everyone will get squeezed. The "studiously neutral" approach of WPP, Publicis, and Omnicom might become a liability, not an asset (to be clear, I don't think so).

Penn is betting that explicit ideological positioning creates more opportunity than neutrality. Or perhaps worse, that people don't care

Bell Pottinger. The UK PR firm ran a covert campaign to stir up racial tensions in South Africa on behalf of the Gupta family. The firm was expelled from industry bodies in 2017 and collapsed. When agencies take politically charged work that becomes public, the reputational damage can be terminal.

Stagwell isn't Bell Pottinger, yet. But they're playing with similar fire. The Israel research leaked in September created immediate backlash. Stagwell cancelled its "Festival of Stagwell" event citing security concerns.

That was research. Imagine the reaction when actual campaigns with ideological implications go public.

The client math doesn't work long-term. For every defense contractor or Western-aligned brand that finds Stagwell's positioning attractive, there are ten global brands for whom it creates exposure. Starbucks can't rebuild global brand equity while their agency's parent company has explicit pro-West positioning. JPMorgan can't expand in Saudi Arabia while partnering with agencies aligned with companies powering Israeli military operations.

If you're a CMO at a global brand, you need to do something you've probably never done, conduct an ideological risk audit of your agency relationships.

Here are the specific questions:

First, map exposure: Which markets are critical to your business? Does your agency's parent company have public positioning that creates risk in those markets? For Starbucks and JPMorgan, the answer is unambiguously yes. For a US defense contractor, the answer might be no.

Second, document decision process: If you hired a Stagwell agency in 2023-2024, was their ideological positioning disclosed during the pitch? Did your procurement team know about the Israel research? Did they know about Mark Penn's political connections and donations? If not, was material information withheld?

Third, assess contractual options: Review your agency agreements. Do you have termination rights if the holding company takes positions that create brand risk? Most agency contracts don't contemplate this scenario. They should.

Fourth, evaluate alternatives: If ideological positioning creates risk, can you move to agencies without this exposure? Or does the quality of creative work justify the risk? That's a business decision, not a moral one. But it needs to be made explicitly, not by default.

For procurement teams running RFPs: Add this criterion to your evaluation framework: "Does this agency or holding company have public political or ideological positioning that could complicate our operations in [list your critical markets]?"

Because what Stagwell just proved is that holding companies can and will choose ideological positioning as competitive strategy. You need to know before you sign the contract, not after.

Step back from Stagwell for a moment and look at what's actually happening.

WPP, with 114,000 employees and it's own set of challenges, maintains studied neutrality. They work in China, they work in Saudi Arabia, they work everywhere. No explicit positioning.

Publicis, with their Power of One integration and Epsilon's first-party data, maintains studied neutrality. They serve clients globally without ideological stance.

Omnicom and IPG, if they successfully merge, will maintain studied neutrality. That's how you serve $20 billion in client billings.

Then there's Stagwell: $2.7 billion in revenue, 13,000 employees, and now an explicit partnership with a company whose CEO says he's "powering the West to its obvious innate superiority."

For 20 years, the industry assumed neutrality was a competitive requirement. You had to be able to serve any client, anywhere, without political baggage.

Stagwell just bet that assumption is wrong. That in a bifurcated world, neutrality is weakness, not strength. That there are clients who will increasingly demand ideological alignment, not just creative excellence.

But we're not there yet. Most Fortune 500 brands still operate globally. Most CMOs still need agencies that can work across markets. Most talent still wants to work on culturally impactful global brands.

Stagwell is betting on a future that might arrive. But they're making that bet while still trying to serve clients who operate in the present.

That's the strategic tension that makes this fascinating. And dangerous.

For the CMOs navigating this, you probably hired these agencies for strategic and creative excellence, not ideological alignment. But now you're getting both whether you wanted it or not.

Brandflow is written by Justin Billingsley, who has spent his career on all three sides of the industry's table: senior client, global agency leader, technology founder. First published 9 November 2025 in the Brandflow newsletter on LinkedIn.